The present invention pertains to router attachments. This particular router attachment is especially useful in cutting slots to receive standard biscuits used in biscuit joinery.
Biscuit joinery has been popular for several years. In general, it involves using a biscuit joiner machine with a four-inch circular blade which is plunged edgewise into the workpiece to cut a slot defining a segment of a circle. The depth of the cut is varied depending upon the size of biscuit to be used. At this time, there are three standard biscuit sizes. To make a joint using biscuit joinery, identical slots are cut in two pieces of wood; the slots in two pieces of wood are aligned; glue is put in the slots and on the faces of the wood to be joined; and the two pieces of wood are brought together with the biscuit fitting into the two adjacent slots. The biscuit swells to take up the space, making this a very strong and very easy-to-use joint.
Such a joint would be very popular with home woodworkers because of its ease of use, except that the "biscuit joiner" machine used to cut the slots is generally a dedicated machine for only that purpose, costing $250 and up. That price is prohibitive for most home woodworkers, who have already had to purchase a table saw or radial arm saw, a router, a sander, and perhaps other expensive tools.
The idea of using a router to cut such a groove would generally be dismissed, because a router operates at a much higher speed than a biscuit joiner, and therefore generally is not suited for use with a blade as large as four inches in diameter.